The Hardships of Action Movies

Finished Live Free or Die Hard…..again. Aside from Justin Long’s ninety-minute impersonation of a goose with A.D.D. I find it an enjoyable film. I’m a fan of the entire series – a big fan of Bruce Willis. I’ve followed his career since Moonlighting and the pilot episode where the audience predicted within the first ten minutes that he and Maddie were going to wind up in bed together, and Maddie would slice off his genitals with a pair of nail clippers after her bout of sexual depression.

However, it was John McClane that changed the face of action movies for the next three decades. He was the common man, the average cop toppling the heinous ploys of military trained mercenaries and computer geniuses, with his marriage and alcoholism being the only true threats to his livelihood. After Die Hard, the age of the buff, burly men created by the likes of Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, and Charles Bronson, evolving to the likes of Stallone and Schwarzenegger dwindled away, focusing now on pretty boys such as Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, and other Ken doll rejects that couldn’t light Richard Roundtree’s cigar, but anyone could now be an action star. Tom Cruise pulled it off, not that the movies were any good, but he still did it.

Luckily, The Expendables has brought us full circle, even bringing along some fresh faces like the multifaceted Terry Crews and the so-terrible-he’s-awesome Randy Couture. 

What I am truly excited about is that now we are also seeing the full fledged emergence of women in action roles. Sigourney Weaver and Pam Grier are a couple of the first memorable ones. I also recall Cynthia Rothrock and Michelle Yeoh in the early days but those two were more noticeable to martial arts enthusiasts, nothing mainstream. Rachel McLish tried to pull it off in Iron Eagle 3, but that was one bird that didn’t fly too well. Now, we have Gina Carano leading the way with her underperforming but great film Haywire, directed by Steven Soderbergh. In The Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence is making up for Kirsten Stewart’s uselessness in Twilight – she nearly set women back ninety years with her performance, much like Stephanie Meyers did set women back one-hundred-thirty years with those stacks of garbage she calls the Twilight series. Absolutely abhorrent writing; thankfully Suzanne Collins gave teen girls someone that can actually inspire courage and independence in them rather than ineptitude. Television does enough of that. 

In reality, though, it is regular men and women that do all of the fighting for us. Serving our country, putting their lives on the line everyday, be they police officers, firefighters, soldiers; it’s your next door neighbor – your friend – your total stranger. They inspire valor in people they know. 

One of these days, should you see one of them, take time to shake their hands and thank them. Most of them deserve it. They will never earn the millions of dollars that these actors and authors have made, but they do the dirty work that is glamorized by entertainment and are affected in distressing ways never shown on screen because at the end of the story the heroes receive the accolades, while in reality the true heroes get underpaid and develop psychological disorders. 

* Sidenote: I began an outline for a Die Hard sequel that was action-less. The movie revolved around John McClane dealing with the psychological affects of his adventures – dealing with his failing marriage, his alcoholism, the hardships on his children. I’ll have to tweak it a bit, but it’s salvageable for another story.